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Spider Prints

Spiders are air-breathing chelicerate arthropods that have two body segments, eight legs, and no chewing mouth parts. About 40,000 species have been identified. In spiders' bodies the usual arthropod segments are fused into two tagmata, the cephalothorax and abdomen, joined by a small, cylindrical pedicel. As in all arthropods the coelom is very small and the main body cavity is a hemocoel through which hemolymph delivers oxygen and nutrients to the tissues and removes waste products. The gut is so narrow that spiders cannot eat large lumps of solid matter, and spiders liquidize their food by flooding it with digestive enzymes and grinding it with the appendages around their mouths. In all except the most primitive group, the Mesothelae, spiders have the most centralized nervous systems of all arthropods, as all their ganglia are fused into one mass in the cephalothorax. Unlike most arthropods, spiders have no extensor muscles in their limbs and instead extend them by hydraulic pressure. Their abdomens bear appendages that have been modified into spinnerets that extrude silk from up to six types of silk gland within their abdomens. Spider silk provides a combination of lightness, strength and elasticity that is superior to that of synthetic materials, and spider silk genes have been inserted into mammals and plants to see if these can be used as silk factories. As a result of their wide range of behaviors, spiders have become common symbols in art and mythology, symbolizing various combinations of patience, cruelty and creative powers.

A vegetarian species was described in 2007, but all others are predators, mostly preying on insects and on other spiders, although a few large species also take birds and lizards. However the young of many spiders supplement their diet with nectar and there is statistical evidence that adults supplement theirs with pollen. Spiders' chelicerae are modified into fangs, which in most cases can inject venom into prey. While the venom of a few species is dangerous to humans, scientists are now researching the use of spider venoms in medicine and as non-polluting pesticides. Spiders capture prey by trapping it in sticky webs, waiting in ambush for it or running it down. Species that use webs or ambush tactics are extremely sensitive to vibrations in the air, ground and silk threads that they use as tripwires, while the active hunters have eyesight up to ten times as acute as that of dragonflies. Some active hunters also use different tactics for different prey, and show signs of intelligence by trying a variety of tactics against difficult prey and by learning very quickly what tactics to adopt against unfamiliar prey. Others have modified bodies and behavior patterns that enable them to mimic ants on which they prey. Spider's webs vary widely in size, shape and the amount of sticky thread used. It now appears that the spiral orb web may be one of the earliest forms. Orb-web spiders, although well-known and the most extensively studied, are a minority of spider species and spiders that produce other types of web are more abundant, possibly because their tangled webs present greater obstacles to predatory wasps.

In males spiders the pedipalps (appendages just below / behind the mouth) are modified as syringes that inject sperm into females' genitalia. To avoid being eaten before they can mate, male spiders identify themselves by a variety of complex courtship rituals. Males of most species survive a few matings, limited mainly by their short life spans, and in a few species males live for a while in their mates' webs. However males of a few species impale themselves on the females' fangs while mating, perhaps because ensuring that their mates are well-fed increases the likely number of offspring. Female spiders weave silk egg-cases, each of which may contain hundreds of eggs; the spiders then hatch as apparently miniature adults, although most are incapable of feeding until after their first molt. Females of many species care for their young, for example by carrying them around or by sharing food with them. A minority of species are social, building communal webs that may house anywhere from a few to 50,000 individuals. Social behavior ranges from precarious toleration, as in the aggressive widow spiders, to co-operative hunting and food-sharing. Although most spiders live for at most two years, tarantulas and other mygalomorph spiders can live up to 25 years in captivity.

Spider-like arachnids with silk-producing spigots appear in the Devonian period about 386 million years ago, but these animals apparently lacked spinnerets. True spiders have been found in Carboniferous rocks from 318 to 299 million years ago, and are very similar to the most primitive surviving order, the Mesothelae. The main groups of modern spiders, Mygalomorphae and Araneomorphae, first appear in the Triassic period, before 200 million years ago. After 130 million years ago fossil amber preserves details of spiders' anatomy and behavior, including mating, killing prey, producing silk and possibly caring for their young. In a few cases amber has preserved spiders' egg sacs and webs, occasionally with prey attached.

Spiders are chelicerates and therefore arthropods. As arthropods they have: segmented bodies with jointed limbs, all covered in a cuticle made of chitin and proteins; heads that are composed of several segments that fuse during the development of the embryo. Being chelicerates, their bodies consist of two tagmata, sets of segments that serve similar functions: the foremost one, called the cephalothorax or prosoma, is a complete fusion of the segments that in an insect would form two separate tagmata, the head and thorax; the rear tagma is called the abdomen or opisthosoma. The pattern of segment fusion that forms chelicerates' heads is unique among arthropods, and what would normally be the first head segment disappears at an early stage of development, so that chelicerates lack the antennae typical of most arthropods. In fact chelicerates' only appendages ahead of the mouth are a pair of chelicerae, and they lack anything that would function directly as jaws. The first appendages behind the mouth are called pedipalps, and serve different functions within different groups of chelicerates.

Spiders and scorpions are members of one chelicerate group, the arachnids. While scorpions' chelicerae are generally a modest pair of claws that they use in feeding, spiders' terminate in fangs that are are generally venomous, and fold away behind the upper sections while not in use, while the upper sections generally have thick eards that filter solid lumps out of their food, as spiders can take only liquid food; On the other hand scorpions' pedipalps generally form large claws for capturing prey, while those of spiders are fairly small sensors whose bases also act as an extension of the mouth; in addition those of male spiders have enlarged last sections used for sperm transfer.